When people immigrate to Israel....?

The term Alyiah (עלייה) refers to Jewish immigrants only, and it literally means "rising".

New Jewish immigrants are Olim, "risers".

Correspondingly, the term for Israeli emigration is Yeridah, "going down".

The term 'Aliyah' is first used in Genesis to describe Abraham's return to Israel from Egypt. As the term literally means 'to rise', the intention could have been that he travelled north (as Israel is north of Egypt) or literally rose as Israel is mountainous. The spiritual reason however was that Israel is a holy place, and anyone who enters it rises to a higher spiritual plane. Because of that, we say any Jew who comes to Israel is making 'aliyah'. On the same theme, three times a year Jews are (were) commanded to go to Jerusalem to give sacrifices. The term used to describe this pilgrimage is also 'aliyah'. While this could once again literally be refering to rising as Jerusalem is on a mountain, the spiritual reason is that Israel is holy, and Jerusalem is the holiest.

Aliyah: in Judaism, the honour, accorded to a worshipper, of being called up to read an assigned passage from the Torah at Sabbath morning services;

Aliyah: Jewish immigration to Israel.

Because the passage assigned for each Sabbath morning service is subdivided into a minimum of seven sections, at least seven different persons are called up for these readings.

http://www.alldigitall.net/

you don't have to be be jewish at all. Israel is a modern and democratic country where everyone can apply for citizenship. the only exception is that because Israel is the Jewish homeland, jews (if they can prove they're jewish) could move to israel tomorrow. the reason for this is because God promised the Jews Israel, and every year we say 'next year in jerusalem' and we have always prayed since our expulsion to return, so they wanted to make it as easy as possible for jews to live there. that doesn't mean to say that anyone else can't live there, it's just slightly harder

Aliyah literally means "ascent" or "going up."

literally aliyah is "to be called or to go up"

Going up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah

Ascend up and be called to the Torah

To go up